WHAT DO RETAILERS WHO HAVE MADE THE SWITCH HAVE TO SAY?
I’ve been working with ethanol for 30 years, so I’m not afraid of whether it’s a quality product. I know it’s a great quality product and I know it helps lessen our dependence on foreign oil. But there are other reasons to do it, like our economics and the profits of this company.
BRUCE VOLLAN: Midway Station, Baltic, South Dakota
All the work was done and we flipped the switch, and overnight it was double the business. Let me tell you, when you give people a choice it’s just absolutely amazing. So when I say we doubled our business overnight, it truly was doubling the business — and in the next three years we’d seen that business continue to grow to three time the volumes before the upgrades.
BOB O’CONNOR, Jetz Convenience Centers, Milwaukie, Wisconsin
When you have a good product, when others are making money, and it’s good for our world, more people are going to do it. And if you don’t, they will. IT’s going to become that kind of situation. So it’s better in my opinion to get ahead of this than be on the backside of this by far.
MIKE LORENZ, Sheetz, Altoona, Pennsylvania
We’ve been selling E15 for three years. All we had to do is change the dispensers. We’ve got 260 stores that sell E15 and E85. For us it was all about consumer choice. It’s continuing to grow; it’s just up and to the right. So we’re really optimistic.
CHARLIE GOOD, Good n’ Quick Company, Nevada, Iowa
I felt I could increase my revenue, I could increase my dollars, I could increase my customer base, by adding flex fuels and I’ve done all that. But the main thing is, when more people come through to buy flex fuel, they buy all the other stuff too. So it’s increased me two ways.
BRUCE VOLLAN: Midway Station, Baltic, South Dakota
The consumer always shops with their wallet in mind. However, the justify the product they’re going to buy, whether it’s E15, E30 or E0, I’m happy to offer all these things. With that said, the economics of petroleum and ethanol are constantly changing. There will be days when E10 is the big seller, or there will be days like today when E85 is the one.
The price is driving most of our customers. No one likes buying gas. It’s almost a hostile transaction — they’ll go out of their way to save five cents a gallon. And that’s what we sell it for, five cents a gallon less. And that’s enough to drive behavior.
BOB O’CONNOR, Jetz Convenience Centers, Milwaukie, Wisconsin
We’re able to increase performance for our customers, we’re able to clean the air with every gallon, we’re able to save them money at the pump, which they absolutely love, and we’re able to support local, Wisconsin, family jobs.
KENT SATRANG: Petro-Serve USA, Fargo, North Dakota
“We have about 70 blender pumps. We wanted to offer E30 and E85. We just mounted them, didn’t have to do anything different to the lines or anything different to the tanks. If we have a station now where we just have a traditional gas pump, we can sell E15. There’s no major cost in upgrading that. Eventually we’ll put it in all our stores.”
MIKE LORENZ, Sheetz, Altoona, Pennsylvania
It’s cheaper. That clearly drives sales. But it’s higher octane. And it’s cleaner burning. That resonates with most consumers. For higher octane, you’d typically pay more; something that’s cleaner burning — something green — you’d typically pay more. And here you’ve got a product that’s cheaper.
We don’t want to just give consumers choice, we wanted to give them a choice of a quality product, and we felt E15 met that criteria.
I wouldn’t be selling an average of 20-22% ethanol if people did not want to buy it. Our business has become incredibly more profitable. It’s given us the chance to go from three full time people and one part-timer to 13 full and part-time employees. Which just makes life so much easier.
